The film is based on the 2017 true crime book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, which depicts the incessant murders of the Osage people in 1920s Oklahoma. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a dim middle-aged white man who travels to Oklahoma to live with his brother and uncle, William “King” Hale, played by Robert De Niro. Soon after Ernest arrives at his uncle’s cattle ranch, he learns of the Osage community and their lucrative oil rights. Mollie Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone, is an Osage woman whose family has rights to that oil money. King encourages his nephew to woo and marry her to access her family’s wealth. The rest of the film deals with the conniving and killing directed at the Osage community to feed the greed of the opportunistic white interlopers.

Martin Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth did a good job returning the audience to Ernest and Mollie’s relationship throughout the film. Their new romance is portrayed as budding and innocent during the film’s first quarter. But the audience senses Ernest’s impure motives. Innocence wears off as the film progresses with more focus on family and the dying Osage. “Do you still love me?,” a sickly Mollie asks her husband after sensing an emotional distance. Ernest exemplifies how love cannot, in fact, conquer all. In this case, greed overpowered love from the very beginning. 

Racism also impacts relationship dynamics in the film. Prevalent in Mollie and Ernest’s relationship, it is also present in the majority of white and Osage interactions. King, Ernest’s uncle, is a perfect example. Despite being the mastermind behind Ernest’s ruse with Mollie and her family, he is a leader in the community who has befriended many Osage residents. However, not enough to stop him from betraying them. 

The biggest problem with the film is the representation of the Osage population. In their own story, they were minimized to the point that the story centered around the white power players. This is a story about white men capitalizing on Osage people’s vulnerability. All of the Osage characters, except Mollie, are underdeveloped. Despite this, it is appreciated that this is a film about a hardly discussed chapter of American history. It feels like a step in the right direction for cinema.   

The outstanding performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone were the primary reason I loved the film. We know that DiCaprio is one of the best actors to date, and in this movie, we see why. His ability to embody complex and diverse motives is remarkable. I was pleasantly surprised by the relatable strength Gladstone, a relative newcomer to larger productions, shows as Mollie. The authentic costumes and realistic set design transport the viewer to the rural 1920s America. This film is an investment at almost three and a half hours, but it is visually stunning, moving, impactful and worth your time.

‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is currently playing at FilmScene in Iowa City, as of November 13th, 2023.

The 500 Club seeks to provide concise film reviews and criticism at around a cool 500 words for your viewing pleasure.

The post The 500 Club: Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The plot is relatively simple. In the vast emptiness of the French Alps, novelist Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is under suspicion after her husband was found, by their visually impaired son (Milo Machado Graner), dead after falling from the attic of their house, with his blood spattered all over the snow. Due to the inconclusive autopsy, it is unknown whether or not he committed suicide or was pushed. Charting the nightmarish, year-long court procedure coming immediately after the discovery, Sandra must prove her innocence, as she was the only one in the house at the time when it happened, and she was his wife.

Anatomy of a Fall operates on a multitude of levels, as a courtroom procedural, a thriller, a divorce drama, a ghost story, and it is due to these multitudes that Anatomy evades heavy handed melodrama to firmly place itself in cold realism, moving at a glacial pace before it burns and reopens the wound. Unlike the more recent divorce drama Marriage Story, whose emotional pyrotechnics were parodied and memed to death across the internet, Anatomy never allows its emotional ambition to be easily dismissed. It’s an exhausting film. Lasting 151 minutes, the film is an open casket for the central relationship. We see it all, the contempt and angst in this dead marriage.

This is credit not only to Triet’s precise direction, but also to Sandra Hüller’s quietly devastating performance. It’s a truly lived-in portrayal of a woman usurped by grief, trying to refute the public perception of herself as a monster, and a murderer. It is in her best moments where she is at once both vulnerable yet restrained, where we can tell she’s truthful, yet still an enigma. In each instance where more damning evidence is revealed, we devilishly want to keep poking and prodding deeper, unfurling all the messy details trapped inside her. The film understands our want, and our need for a salacious story.

Triet seems to take the perspective of a documenter in Anatomy of a Fall, and it’s clear about halfway through what Sandra is and is-not guilty of, yet Triet never wants us to be complicit in our opinions. At one point in the film, some talk show hosts liken Sandra’s court case to her novels, and gleefully contemplate the possibility of life imitating art. It seems like Triet wants to reprimand us for our need to distance ourselves from tragedy with tabloid gossip and quick spectacle, in order to try and deal with the bleak truth waiting for us at the end of it all.

‘Anatomy of a Fall’ is currently playing at FilmScene in Iowa City, as of November 4th, 2023.

The 500 Club seeks to provide concise film reviews and criticism at around a cool 500 words for your viewing pleasure.

The post The 500 Club: Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” appeared first on KRUI Radio.